The idea is to drag email and IM into real-time—so it's free-wheeling mesh of Twitter, IM, Friendfeed really, any other kind of service presenting semi-real-time stuff in a stream. But in Google Wave, you can share and collaborate on projects, and all of this is mashed together at once, so it might be the ultimate service for people with ADD, or enterprise looking to simulate the feeling of 10 people standing around a desk scattered with a bunch of projects, but you're all able to work on any of them simultaneously while you're also whispering to the cute girl across the table about the new sushi place around the corner. You start a wave with any message or photo or whatever, and you bring people into the discussion, and then they can bring other people in as well (unless you block it or start kicking people out) so it's as public or private as you want it to be.

It's easy to see why Google would jump in here—real-time is the next iteration of the internets, and everybody's been obsessed with it since Twitter (look no further than Facebook). Not only does Wave elevate the collaborative and conversational aspect of real-time, Google's smartly pimping it from the app side too, pushing for apps that use and run within a wave, since a service is now really only as good as it is as a platform. At least, I think that's what this is all about. Maybe it's just a surfing chatroom. [Google Wave, Cnet]

sounds like a real time version of clipmarks !

I just read that the invites are selling for $70 on eBay. http://mashable.com/2009/09/30/google-wave-invite/


Wow.

Mind you, for the moment it’s the only Wave invite auction on eBay, a far cry from the mini-industry that emerged around Gmail (Gmail) invites back in 2004.

I remember when they rolled out Gmail,
I got my "invite" from a friend..... Then Google allowed subscribers 100 "invites" to pass out to their friends!

http://www.google-online-business.com/google-information/gmail.php

I'd be surprised if Google didn't launch the public beta download within a couple months. I don't trust beta version applications, I just wait patiently until the bugs get worked out.

Ah, selling invite on ebay? LOL, I simply got my FREE google wave invite from http://free-googlewaveinvites.blogspot.com/ - just fill the survey form, leave your email in the comment, you'll get the invite in a day or two.